14 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



the right track. That there is any hard and fast 

 rule for finding the nest I, for one, doubt 

 exceedingly. 



Should you be fortunate enough to catch a pair 

 building in gorse, stand still. Stand you must 

 when studying " Dartfords," unless they are in 

 heather ; seldom if ever can the bushes be properly 

 commanded from a sitting or recumbent posture. 

 At first, perhaps, the female alone is in sight, 

 poised on a furze-point fairly close by. In her 

 beak is a tuft of Ring-Dove's fluffy down that 

 white down decorating the base of pigeons' under- 

 feathers. Now, if you are extremely close to the 

 nest as yet unknown, the architect, although in a 

 sense confiding when busy at house-planning, will 

 not actually give her wares away, but will instead 

 keep taking short, quick, spasmodic, and agitated 

 flights from bush to bush, finally copying a feat of 

 the Whitethroat by describing a big reverted arc, 

 and then taking refuge in a strip of covert some 

 seventy yards distant. Now, to make sure that 

 you are really close to the nest stay where you 

 are ; and, if you are, ten minutes later back comes 

 the builder, this time with some dark fluffy 

 material. The white down she must have 

 dropped, as birds will with nest-fabric when kept 

 too long from adding to their home. Then the 

 same game as before is played to the letter ; a 

 second time the bird departs, and you, too, must 

 make a move to a point which sweeps the place 



